"Theoretically it's a great grief to him," replied Dick. "But you see I have done fairly well, so actually he's ready to burst with pride. Every sentimental philosopher sooner or later breaks his head against his own theories." Mrs. Pettifer nodded her head in commendation. "That's an improvement on your last remark, Dick. It's true. And your father's going to break his head very badly unless you stop him." "How?" "Mrs. Ballantyne." All the flippancy died out of Dick Hazlewood's face. He became at once grave, wary. "I have been hearing about him," continued Mrs. Pettifer. "He has made friends with her--a woman who has stood in the dock on a capital charge." "And has been acquitted," Dick Hazlewood added quietly and Mrs. Pettifer blazed up. "She wouldn't have been acquitted if I had been on the jury. A parcel of silly men who are taken in by a pretty face!" she cried, and Dick broke in: "Aunt Margaret, I am sorry to interrupt you. But I want you to understand that I am with my father heart and soul in this." He spoke very slowly and deliberately and Mrs. Pettifer was utterly dismayed. "You!" she cried. She grew pale, and alarm so changed her face it was as if a tragic mask had been slipped over it. "Oh, Dick, not you!" "Yes, I. I think it is cruelly hard," he continued with his eyes relentlessly fixed upon Mrs. Pettifer's face, "that a woman like Mrs. Ballantyne, who has endured all the horrors of a trial, the publicity, the suspense, the dread risk that justice might miscarry, should have afterwards to suffer the treatment of a leper." There was for the moment no room for any anger now in Mrs. Pettifer's thoughts. Consternation possessed her. She weighed every quiet firm word that fell from Dick, she appreciated the feeling which gave them wings, she searched his face, his eyes. Dick had none of his father's flightiness. He was level-headed, shrewd and with the conventions of his times and his profession. If Dick spoke like this, with so much certitude and so much sympathy, why then--She shrank from the conclusion with a sinking heart. She became very quiet. "Oh, she shouldn't have come to Little Beeding," she said in a low voice, staring now upon the ground. It was to herself she spoke, but Dick answered her, and his voice rose to a challenge. "Why shouldn't she? Here she was born, here she was known. What else should she do but come back to Little Beeding and hold her head high? I respect her pride for doing it." Here were reasons no doubt why Stella should come back; but they did not include the reason why she had. Dick Hazlewood was well aware of it. He had learnt it only the afternoon before when he was with her on the river. But he thought it a reason too delicate, of too fine a gossamer to be offered to the prosaic mind of his Aunt Margaret. With what ridicule and disbelief she would rend it into tatters! Reasons so exquisite were not for her. She could never understand them.